


You Won't Ever Be Alone

by MakeUsMarble



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Canon Divergence, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Pining, Post-Scene: Church in London 1941 (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeUsMarble/pseuds/MakeUsMarble
Summary: Crowley looked down at that picture of Aziraphale crying in the park, and wondered if it was possible for an angel to die of a broken heart.He got on a plane that night and went home. He cleaned the dust from his flat with a wave of his hand and dropped a new potted plant on his windowsill. Then he sat down on his throne, and he started to plot.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 246





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First ever fic! Parts of this are already posted on ffn, but I've made some changes (and also finished it). The whole thing is done and should be posted within a few days (when I get done obsessively tweaking). Thanks for reading! I would LOVE any comments you're willing to give!

_Oh, the books! I forgot all the books! Oh, they’ll all be blown to--_

_Little demonic miracle of my own. Lift home?_

Aziraphale had lived through any number of earthquakes, but this private earthquake was something entirely new to him--the only time in his long existence when he’d felt his entire interior landscape fall apart, only for every piece to come back together in a completely new configuration. Like a mirrored kaleidoscope turning, nothing in his life had, in fact, changed, but a tiny twist _(that private smile, the hot brush of Crowley’s hand)_ made him feel like a stranger in his own skin.

 _This is very strange. This is very strange. I should certainly pause and reflect. Spend some time alone, have some tea, do some cataloguing. Then all of this will make more sense--_ “Come in for a drink?” his traitor mouth said instead.

Worse, he could feel heat rising in his cheeks as he asked the question, an _entirely casual_ question he’d asked Crowley dozens of times before, but for some reason tonight he couldn’t look at the demon while he said it.

“Sure, angel,” Crowley answered, sounding slightly surprised. Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s eyes on his face, and his blush deepened. “...everything all right?”

“Yes, yes, of course! Just all a bit of a shock-- the bombing, and the spies, and everything!” he babbled, flustered.

“All right,” and Aziraphale could _feel_ Crowley’s skeptical smile like pressure on his skin.

In the darkness outside the bookshop, Aziraphale fumbled with his key in the door. _Does Crowley usually stand this close to me? I don’t think he usually stands this close--_

“Angel.” Crowley’s hand was suddenly resting atop his. “Look at me. It’s just me,” he said softly.

Aziraphale met his eyes for the first time since they’d left the church, and the tenderness he saw there took his breath away. _He’s never looked at me like that before-- but he has-- he_ always _looks at me like that--_

Crowley reached up and gently, so gently, brushed his fingers across Aziraphale’s cheek. Aziraphale, whose brain had come to a complete halt, found himself extending a trembling hand and intertwining their fingers. Those golden eyes seemed to burn into him as Crowley cupped his face, leaned forward, and kissed him.

 _Oh…_ The feeling of Crowley’s lips, pressing softly against his, ran like fire through his body till every inch of him hummed like an exposed nerve. All those years of friendship, of arguing and drinking together, of trusting each other and saving each other, of feeling joy bubbling up inside him when he saw Crowley _(every time, every time)_ , it had all been leading them here, Crowley’s free arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him close, Aziraphale sliding his own arms around Crowley’s neck, fingers running through his hair.

One pure, unquestionable truth shot through Aziraphale like lightning as Crowley pulled back just slightly to look at him. He’d loved this demon since the beginning, and Crowley had loved him too. That love had run through every second of his six thousand years on Earth, holding him up like his bones.

Whatever of this was showing on his face, it made Crowley smile. “You should get into trouble more often, angel. If this is how you react.”

Aziraphale laughed. “No, you’ll have to stay close by and keep an eye out. I couldn’t stand all the excitement, my dear.”

Crowley’s smile widened and he pulled Aziraphale back to his mouth, kissing him more deeply. Aziraphale surrendered to the kiss, head spinning, acutely aware of their bodies tight against each other, Crowley’s hands running up his back, Crowley’s lips… He gave into sensation entirely, love filling his chest with an intensity almost like pain. Nothing existed outside this perfect moment, the fulfillment of everything he wanted, everything he was.

There was a blinding flash of light and a concussive blast. Something ripped Crowley out of his arms. Aziraphale was thrown across the pavement, skidding to a halt yards from the bookshop door. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, blaze-blind and ears ringing. Distantly, he could hear Crowley calling frantically, “Aziraphale?! Aziraphale!”

“Crowley, I’m all right--” he called back, starting to stand-- and then that was abruptly, overwhelmingly untrue as rough hands grabbed his arms and shoulders, and his vision cleared enough to show him Gabriel, face burning with a rage Aziraphale had never seen before. Behind him, he saw angels surrounding his demon, still sprawled on the ground. 

Their eyes met for one agonized moment before the circle of angels closed. “No! No, please! _Crowley!_ ”

Light flared again, and they were gone.

***

_Later._

Crowley came to slowly on the floor of his flat. He levered himself to his hands and knees, groaning at every movement. He _felt_ like standing up would be a very bad idea. He _felt_ , in fact, like every bone in his body had been broken, like every inch of his skin had been pierced with-- _Nope_. He cut off that train of thought. None of it had happened to this body, anyway, however vivid the memories were. He could stand just fine.

He had no idea how long he’d been gone for. All his plants were dead, that was a bad sign. _Bastards_. He felt a twinge at the sight of the shriveled leaves, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment. Crowley got himself upright and, leaning on various pieces of furniture, stumbled out the door of the flat.

He made it outside mainly by bouncing from wall to wall and some slightly controlled falling down the stairs. He had a moment of disorientation when his Bentley wasn’t waiting on the curb. _Left it. Left it outside the bookshop when--_ His heart clenched unbearably tight. _Focus. Get a cab. Get to the bookshop. He’ll be there. He’ll be all right. Angels don’t torture or kill their own._

Crowley, of course, knew quite intimately that this wasn’t true. He fell into a cab, wrestling down panic.

At the bookshop, he more-or-less rolled out of the cab and onto the curb, then flung himself at the door. It was locked. He pounded on the door, shouting, “Aziraphale! Aziraphale, it’s me!” before losing patience and snapping his fingers at the lock. He threw the door open and tumbled into the bookshop, still yelling Aziraphale’s name.

He landed on the floor, coughing from the dust. The bookshop was dark and cold. Aziraphale was not there.

It took Crowley three months of plotting, spy-work, threats, and intimidation to learn from Downstairs what he wanted to know: Aziraphale was alive, back on Earth, and apparently doing his normal angelic business. Crowley took his first free breath since he had woken up in his flat. _Now I just have to find him. Easy._ He very carefully did _not_ wonder why, if Aziraphale was free, he hadn’t come looking for Crowley himself.

There were traces of Aziraphale everywhere, but he was turning out to be damnably hard to pin down. Crowley saw blessings the angel had left behind among combatants in conflict zones, politicians making treaties, the hungry and the poor of several continents— he’d never known Aziraphale to move around so much, in fact. _Almost like he’s trying to avoid something. Someone._ Crowley rarely slept, now. Partly because he didn’t have the time; partly because anytime he did, he could be sure that he would either dream of Aziraphale laughing in his arms, close and warm under the London streetlights, or he would wake with the sound of the angel screaming his name ringing in his ears. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

It was two years before he saw Aziraphale again, on the opposite side of a massive crowd of demonstrators. He was scanning the crowd, and for a second he looked right at Crowley, and Crowley was sure he saw something flicker on Aziraphale’s face— but his eyes kept moving, and a moment later he turned and vanished into the crowd.

Crowley stood there, frozen, staring after him for a long moment. Then— 

“ _Fuck!”_ He barrelled into the mass of people, shoving and punching and inadvertently starting a fairly serious riot. He never knew about it, though. He was out of the crowd and running in the direction Aziraphale had gone, running and running till his trembling legs gave out, somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

“Fuck… fuck… goddammit…” he gasped. “Fucking _hell_ , angel… haven’t run this much since… they invented fucking horses…” Crowley stalked back through the city like an angry porcupine, muttering under his breath. “Running from me… playing like you don’t even know me… what the _actual_ fuck, angel… _You_ were the one who said I needed to stay close… Who knows what kind of trouble you’re getting into on your own… probably get eaten by a bear trying to invite it to tea… Save your life, this is the thanks I get...” He searched every street that way, scanning for Aziraphale’s supernatural signature and hunting for a glimpse of blonde hair or a tartan bow tie. It was no use; Aziraphale was gone.

They had four more close encounters like that in the next three years, but Crowley was never able to get near the angel before he vanished. By the fifth time, he had entirely used up his fairly small store of patience. Aziraphale might be technically more powerful than Crowley, but he had never been a match for him at plotting, and Crowley was _not_ going to let him run any longer.

***

Aziraphale probably thought his movements across the world were random, but he had always tended to fall into routines— one of the human traits they’d both picked up over the years. With all his fruitless searching, Crowley knew everywhere Aziraphale had gone in the past five years, and the patterns were there once he started looking for them. Crowley narrowed down the possibilities, paid attention to the news, set up surveillance— then went with his instincts. 

Aziraphale returned late to his flat in Moscow. He shut the door, rubbing his eyes tiredly, then flicked on the lamp.

“Hello, angel,” Crowley said, and snapped his fingers.

The door vanished. Aziraphale stared at him, eyes bulging, jaw dropped. Crowley had a moment of self-congratulatory smugness before Aziraphale’s expression changed to one of horror. He swung around and scrabbled at the wall where the door had been, then turned. “Let me out,” he said, his voice tight and fast. “You have to let me out of here _now!_ ”

Crowley had imagined their reunion thousands of times, and barely-controlled panic had not featured largely in those daydreams. “Angel, what’s wrong? It’s okay, it’s safe here, it’s just me.” He walked toward Aziraphale, hands out placatingly.

Aziraphale recoiled sharply, circling the edge of the room to put a table between them. “Don’t touch me!”

“All right, all right, I won’t!” Crowley took a step back. “Angel, what’s going on? It’s _me_. Did they…” A horrible thought popped into his mind, “did they take away your memory somehow? I’m not going to hurt you, I would never—”

“No, no, it’s not— I remember you, Crowley,” and it did something to him to hear Aziraphale say his name again, even if the angel wouldn’t look at him while he said it.

“Then what is it? Whatever I did, I’m sorry!” He swallowed. “Did they hurt you because of me? I never meant…”

“No, they never hurt me.” Aziraphale’s voice was low and tight. He kept moving, not looking at Crowley, hunting desperately for a way out. “I— I can’t— Crowley, you _have_ to let me out now, you have to!”

“I will if you’ll tell me _why_ , angel!” His voice cracked.

Aziraphale stopped. “Crowley…”

“ _Why?”_

He closed his eyes, his body tense. “Crowley, why do you think they let you go?”

His thoughts stopped in their tracks. “...what?”

“Why do you think they let you go?”

The room suddenly seemed too small to Crowley, the air too close. “You made a deal, didn’t you.” He took an unconscious step toward Aziraphale. “You made a deal so they would let me go.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale stared down at the table. “I swore that if they would set you free and leave you alone, then I would stay away. No contact of any kind.”

Crowley swallowed. “They couldn’t be watching all the time, angel,” he said softly. “It’s worth a bit of risk to—”

“Not to me,” he said harshly.

“Angel, I’m fine, look at me! What they did, it wasn’t that bad—”

 _“I know EXACTLY how bad it was!”_ Aziraphale’s control cracked apart, and his blazing eyes stared straight into Crowley’s, his face twisted with agony. _“They made me WATCH, Crowley! They made me watch while they—”_ He turned away, burying his face in his hands.

Crowley felt his heart stop. In all his dreams and nightmares, he had never imagined this. “Aziraphale…” he whispered, taking a step forward.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, and another. “It was my fault. What happened to you.” He spoke quietly, looking down at his hands. “I won’t let it happen again.” He met Crowley’s eyes, then. It sounded like an oath.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and celestial power rippled through the room in a cool wave. The door wavered back into place, and he turned toward it.

Crowley felt like the room was spinning. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know anything, except that he couldn’t watch Aziraphale walk out that door. After all the pain he’d survived, after everything he’d suffered and lost and borne since the beginning of time, he couldn’t bear to stand here and watch his angel walk away.

“Angel, please,” he choked out. “I love you.”

Aziraphale stopped, and Crowley could see he was trembling. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he was gone.

Crowley’s knees gave way. He slid to the ground and _screamed._

  
  


***

Chaos and destruction didn’t make Crowley feel better, exactly, but at least they were something else to think about. The Cold War provided lots of opportunities for an angry, bitter demon. Incidentally, it also provided a whole new level of infrastructure for monitoring someone very closely from very far away. It was a bit like poking continually at an injury that wouldn’t heal, but Crowley didn’t even try to stop himself from spying on Aziraphale. It made him feel better, in a sick sort of way, to see that Aziraphale seemed unhappy. _It hurts him too. It hurts him to stay away. He wants me as much as I want him._ He thought, when he let himself think about it, that this was perhaps the most twisted punishment he could have imagined: after all these years of longing, to know that Aziraphale loved him back, and that it was the very strength of that love that meant he would never see him again. 

He pored over the reports he got of Aziraphale obsessively, handling the pictures until they went ragged. Aziraphale had moved back to London and the bookshop; after a year or so he seemed to have concluded that Crowley was no longer following him. A few months after the move, Crowley noticed an odd pattern in the reports: it seemed that every week or so Aziraphale would go to St. James Park and just sit there, alone, where he and Crowley used to meet. Finally Crowley got a picture of him there. He was clearly crying. 

Crowley stared at that image for a long time. 

Slowly, he started looking at the reports on Aziraphale differently. The angel didn’t seem to be doing anything but work. He spent very little time in the bookshop, and he wasn’t going to museums or concerts or plays. In all of the pictures close enough to catch his face, he had the same expression of numb resignation. Crowley tried to remember the last time he’d seen the angel eat anything, and he couldn’t. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen Aziraphale smile. 

He looked down at that picture of him crying in the park, and wondered if it was possible for an angel to die of a broken heart.

Crowley got on a plane that night and went home. He cleaned the dust from his flat with a wave of his hand and dropped a new potted plant on his windowsill. Then he sat down on his throne, and he started to plot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From then on, Aziraphale’s life got very strange.

The first card seemed like a normal postal error. The second one struck Aziraphale as odd, but he still didn’t think much of it. By the twentieth Valentines Day card mistakenly delivered to his shop, Aziraphale knew something very strange was going on. He put them in a neat pile by the door, planning to drop them all at the post office the next day. When he got back to the shop the next morning, twenty more were waiting on the mat.

Aziraphale knew something seriously abnormal must be happening, but he had no idea what it could be. Interfering with the post to prank Aziraphale was, he thought with a pang, the kind of thing Crowley would have done, but Crowley was a long way from London now. It was hard to imagine another demon taking that kind of approach, or randomly picking Aziraphale’s shop as the mistaken address. Still, his responsibility was clear. If there might be some kind of supernatural interference going on, he had better deliver the cards himself.

One by one, he brought the cards to their intended recipients. Every day, more were waiting on his doorstep. With every card he returned, a suspicion he didn’t dare name slowly grew in his mind, sending tremors through the numbness around his heart. On the holiday itself, the pile reached nearly to the doorknob-- cards, flowers, chocolates, gifts. He spent the entire day rushing around, making sure every one made it to its destination on time. With every stop, he received profuse thanks-- and sometimes a little bit of the couple’s story.

By the end of the day, he was barely holding on to his composure. Four hundred and eighty-three misdelivered messages, and every one of them had been for a couple who had been separated for a time, some had thought forever, but had found each other again. Every one of them had been happy. 

Aziraphale only just got inside the door of his shop before he dropped to the ground.  _ Crowley, Crowley!  _ He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked with sobs. No one else could have arranged this, and the message the demon was sending him was clear as crystal:  _ Don’t give up. _

From a distance, Crowley watched as Aziraphale collapsed into tears.  _ Message received _ , he thought, and went home.

From then on, Aziraphale’s life got very strange. His favorite bakery started accidentally making deliveries to the bookshop at least once a week, and when he inquired about it no one seemed to have any memory or record of who the delivery had been meant for; they had all just gotten confused, somehow. When he tried to return the pastries, they were always back within a few hours. Aziraphale gave up and ate them. One week, he got word that a major arms deal had been planned for somewhere in London, and he started working to disrupt it. It was all perfectly normal, except that the arms dealers happened to locate every meeting at a different sushi restaurant. There were other, smaller things. Restaurants Aziraphale liked just didn’t seem to go out of business. When a theater in London did a production of  _ Hamlet _ , he won a free ticket. Every time. Waiters were always absent-mindedly bringing him drinks and desserts he hadn’t ordered and then forgetting to charge him for them. Any time he called somewhere to make an appointment (his barber, his tailor), his preferred time was always free. 

Externally, he was careful to make sure that his life went on much as it always had, but Aziraphale felt like he was moving through a happy dream. It seemed impossible, now, that he had once thought he would never see Crowley again. He hadn’t so much as glimpsed the demon since that one awful night, but Crowley’s hand was everywhere, touching every part of his life. Every time the world delivered another weird gift out of nowhere, Aziraphale could almost hear the demon’s voice in his ear:  _ “Let’s have lunch, angel.” “Do you remember the time, in the 18th century wasn’t it...” “Bloody awful, this is. The things I do for you.”  _ And underneath it all:  _ “I love you, I love you, I love you.”  _

In those first years apart, Aziraphale had learned with painful clarity exactly what Crowley meant to him. They had gone decades and even centuries without seeing each other before, but somehow the knowledge that they  _ would _ see each other again was part of what made every day matter. Near escapes, private jokes, the eternal surprises of humanity-- it was all to be filed away until he talked to the only person who would understand. He missed his best friend with an aching loneliness-- and that was without the searing memory of Crowley’s kiss. Thousands of years on earth together, and they had only gotten a few minutes before his superiors came and took everything from them. There was so much he had never gotten to say. The memory of that night played in Aziraphale’s mind over and over and over again: the heat of Crowley’s body in the cold, the softness of his hair under Aziraphale’s fingers, the faint smell of smoke that lingered around them both, every caress of Crowley’s hands, the fierce joy in his eyes… Aziraphale learned, in those years alone, why humans called it “heartbreak”. He felt like something  _ was _ broken inside his chest, and every reminder of Crowley was actually, physically painful, like squeezing an open wound--and everything reminded him of Crowley. Sometimes, though, he sought out those memories; sometimes, the pain felt better than thinking of the future, the gray eternity stretching ahead of him. He didn’t know how he was going to bear it.

He still had no idea where Crowley was or what he was planning or how they could ever see each other again, but all of that vanished into insignificance when yet more evidence of Crowley’s love appeared in his life again. He had expected to be alone forever, but now his demon felt so near. Near enough to touch. He gave up thinking about the future and just lived in the happy haze of the moment. 

He almost laughed aloud the year he got news of an elaborate heist of some valuable books from the British Museum. There was nothing obviously demonic about the crime, but it had to be Crowley. He was mildly surprised when the thieves escaped London, but the clues led him to Paris… Barcelona… Venice… Marrakech… Budapest… Alexandria… Istanbul… He followed the breadcrumbs Crowley had left him through the most beautiful cities in the world, drinking mulled wine at a Christmas market in Vienna and arriving in Kyoto just in time for the spring cherry blossoms.  _ Like a honeymoon,  _ he thought a little wildly, torn between laughter and tears. 

He finally found the books abandoned in a catacombs in Rome-- just where, a few thousand years before, a restaurant had sold some truly excellent oysters. But only one other person would remember that now. His smile trembled a bit as he carefully lifted the books.

A glint on the floor caught his eye. Aziraphale bent down and picked up a silver ring.  _ Left behind by a tourist or an archeologist,  _ he thought.  _ Or... _

“Let there be light,” he said quietly, and a dim glow lit the room. Light caught on the scales delicately picked out on the sides of the ring. He turned it and found the top: a snake eating its own tail.  _ Ouroboros,  _ he thought to himself. Eternity. Rebirth. The union of opposites... 

Hands shaking, he carefully slid it onto the ring finger of his left hand. It fit perfectly. 

It was a long time before Aziraphale left the catacombs, his eyes red and a little swollen. Crowley, watching from a distance, didn’t see the ring anywhere on him. As soon as he was sure the coast was clear, he snuck down into the catacombs to make sure the angel hadn’t missed it in the dark.

Something gleamed on the floor, but it wasn’t the ring he’d left. The dull gold shone softly, and the buzz against his fingertips told him that it had been created by divine power, and recently. The ring was engraved with feathers, half of them etched into the gold of the band, half of them tiny, delicate onyx pressed into the ring. The gold and black feathers were perfectly interspersed.

Crowley’s fist closed tightly on the ring. In all the years that he’d been leaving messages and gifts for Aziraphale, the angel had never attempted to communicate anything back. He knew that Aziraphale was afraid to do anything that might put Crowley in danger, and that Heaven likely watched him much more closely than Hell could be bothered to monitor Crowley. He had told himself that it was enough to see Aziraphale smiling again, and tried to trust that what he had seen in the angel’s eyes that one night decades earlier had been real. Now he felt a nameless, formless fear dissolve under the weight of the ring in his hand.

He ran his thumb over the engraved light and dark feathers. “My angel,” he whispered into the darkness.

The next few decades went on in much the same way. Aziraphale did his work, interrupted by strange little scavenger hunts masterminded by Crowley. For several years, any time he was in a public place that had a speaker system, the announcements would fizzle out to be replaced by love songs; it was particularly dramatic at the airport. He groaned a little when he realized what Crowley was doing-- most of the music was  _ appalling _ , not his taste at all, but he couldn’t help listening and found himself  _ humming _ the blasted songs when he was distracted. Even from a distance, Crowley had found a way to tease him. Another time, for a week a computer glitch made the screens on all the buses in London show quotations from Shakespeare instead of their routes and destinations.  _ Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to your service… I would not wish any companion in the world but you… Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom… I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?... One half of me is yours, the other half yours--mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, and so all yours… _

That was a particularly teary week for Aziraphale. On the other hand, the week that an unsettling number of very friendly garter snakes took up residence in the basement of the bookshop was frankly unnerving. He never knew what Crowley would think of next, except that it pretty consistently involved food (he seemed to default to putting some kind of minor, embarrassing curse on someone working at the Ritz any time he was low on ideas). Aziraphale still missed him terribly, but in the face of that unshakeable persistence, his heart had settled into a kind of peace. Crowley was never far, and he would never really leave him. After falling in love for six thousand years, they both knew something about waiting. Sooner or later, something would change and they would find their way back to each other. They always did.

Then in 2008 they got news of the approaching Apocalypse, and everything changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts about what love songs Crowley is tormenting Aziraphale with?  
> Comments mean so much to me! Thank you!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale smiled, the smallest, saddest smile. “‘Even to the edge of doom,’ right, Crowley?” he said softly. 

Crowley wasn’t officially informed of anything, of course; he was no longer in anyone’s good books. But demons gossip, and when he first heard the whisper _“Antichrist”_ it tore through his mind and left him frozen. Antichrist meant Armageddon; Armageddon meant he would never see Aziraphale again. And some other unpleasant side effects, obviously. But that was the one that gripped his mind and filled him with a frantic determination that was more than a little crazed. The world was _not_ going to end. That was all there was to it. He was one demon nobody trusted against the combined will of all Heaven and Hell-- but he was _going to win_ , because the alternative was unthinkable. 

He snooped and spied and eavesdropped as he had never done before, and so he knew when and where the… _child_ was being delivered. He skulked outside the convent that night and watched Ligur pass the basket to a jittery nun. Crowley’s hands were sweating. This-- this was a chance, this moment, but the seconds were slipping through his fingers and he did not know what to do. He could kill the thing ( _Could you really?_ whispered a voice in his mind that sounded like Aziraphale’s), but then the Antichrist would turn up right back in Hell, and Crowley would _definitely_ be executed. Slowly. And they would send it straight back up, nothing gained. He guessed he could _kidnap_ it, hide it somehow, but that wouldn’t stop it from coming into its powers in due time. _Just putting the bomb in my own backyard with no idea how to defuse it_ . Crowley groaned into his hands, tugging at his hair frantically. _Got to do something, got to do something_ now-- He swung around and started awkwardly scaling a drainpipe. _Climb up. Get inside. Figure it out later._ He kicked a window open, dropped to the floor of an empty hallway, listened at a doorway for a moment, then slipped inside.

The wife of the cultural attache was sleeping. The pseudo-baby, however, was not. Crowley stared down at him. The Antichrist stared back. _He looks so… normal,_ he thought. _Protective coloration, I suppose._ The son of Satan scrunched up his tiny face and yawned. An idea began to stir in the back of Crowley’s mind. _What if he could… BE normal?_ His heart started to pound. _Lucifer wasn’t BORN a devil… if there was no one to teach him to be evil… could he…?_

Crowley reached down and picked up the baby, cradling him carefully in his arms. Ten minutes later, he sauntered casually out of the building while the Antichrist, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Beast that is called Dragon, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness blinked up at Arthur Young and received the name “Adam”.

Crowley didn’t try to involve himself in Adam’s life; the whole point of switching the babies had been to _remove_ demonic influences, after all. He did, however, keep an eye on things, and that was how he came to be driving through Tadfield one night, where Anathema Device rode her bike into his car.

“Oi! What the hell!” he yelled-- but then he saw the girl lying stunned on the ground. He rolled his eyes and went over to help her. _Even when I haven’t seen you in nearly a hundred years, you’re_ still _influencing me, angel. It’s a real pain in the arse._

Back in London, he found the book in the back of the car. _I guess I could mail it to her. Or throw it in the bin._ He looked at the title, and a slow grin spread across his face. _Or… Aziraphale_ loves _prophecy books…_

Crowley had done far too many good deeds for one day. A little stealing would balance it out nicely.

Aziraphale had felt the same cold fear as Crowley when he first heard whispers that the Apocalypse was coming, but he had no idea what he could do to prevent it. Then Crowley sent him the prophecy book, _the_ prophecy book, and he was filled with frantic urgency. If he could get there in time… Crowley surely knew what was happening… maybe, maybe, together they could save the world.

His panicked hope might have made Aziraphale a bit less cautious than he should have been, and he found himself discorporated to join the angelic armies, searching the Earth as a disembodied spirit, and finally occupying the body of one Madame Tracy.

 _We haven’t got much time_ , he explained into her mind. _If we can get there soon enough, all the Apocalyptic forces should be coming together in Tadfield, and there might be a way to stop it. My --_ even in thought, he managed to stutter-- _my friend, Crowley, he should be there too, and--_

 _Oh?_ Madame Tracy interrupted him suggestively, instantly fixating on the one thing he’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice. _Your_ friend, _is it? Who is this?_

 _Uh--_ Somehow, Aziraphale _felt_ like he was blushing even though he didn’t have a face to blush with. _Cr-Crowley-- he’s a demon-- he’s my best friend, he’s been on Earth since the beginning as well, he’ll be trying to stop the world ending too…_ He fought to keep himself from speeding Madame Tracy’s heart up in response to this particular topic.

 _Just a friend, hmm?_ Madame Tracy’s tone was quite expressive.

... _we haven’t seen each other for a long time,_ was all Aziraphale could think to say.

 _Mmm,_ Madame Tracy thought kindly. _Angels and demons aren’t allowed to be_ friends _, I expect?_

 _No,_ Aziraphale thought back, with far more sadness than he had intended to reveal.

 _Well, we’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?_ Aziraphale had the distinct sense that she would have patted him encouragingly if he’d had a body of his own.

Crowley had already been in Tadfield when the skies went dark, and it hadn’t taken him long to find the center of the tempest. He pulled the Bentley up with a shriek and ran inside the air base. He looked wildly around-- _What do I do-- How do I stop it--_

Then, from behind him came a voice he hadn’t heard in almost a century, and everything else fell away.

“Hello, Crowley.”

“Hello, Crowley.” Aziraphale heard Crowley inhale sharply, saw his shoulders tense. Then the demon flung himself around and stared at Aziraphale like he was the last thing he’d ever see.

“ _Angel,”_ he breathed.

 _Ohhh, he_ does _fancy you, doesn’t he?_ Madame Tracy thought at him, and Aziraphale _desperately_ wished he had his own body back.

Crowley blinked, suddenly noticing the obvious. “What happened to you?”

“I’ve been discorporated, I’m afraid. Called back to report to Heaven’s armies, you know. Madame Tracy was kind enough to offer me a lift.” Aziraphale’s voice was quite calm, possibly because he was barely aware of what he was saying. Nearly all his attention was focused on staring at Crowley, Crowley who he hadn’t laid eyes on in decades, and who was staring at him as if he could see right through his borrowed body and into his trembling soul, as if he could absorb Aziraphale through his eyes alone.

“Sorry about that,” Crowley said softly, not breaking eye contact.

A smile flickered across Aziraphale’s (Madame Tracy’s) face. “It’s hardly your fault, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed, and Aziraphale suddenly, vividly remembered the last time he’d called the demon that.

Madame Tracy cleared her throat politely. “Sorry to interrupt, but hadn’t we better move along a bit?”

The trance was broken and all their lost sense of urgency rushed back into the angel and demon.

As it turned out, there didn’t appear to be much for them to do. Aziraphale nearly wet himself when their respective bosses appeared and saw him and Crowley together, but all Gabriel did was look at him like he was the dirt beneath the archangel’s feet (which was frankly nothing new). When Gabriel and Beelzebub vanished, a tiny bubble of hope started to fill his chest. Maybe they would actually get away with this. Even if he didn’t get Crowley back, as long as the world kept turning he could keep clinging to the hope that maybe, someday, he _would_.

Then the air shook, and Crowley collapsed to the ground. Aziraphale reached for him instinctively, only just remembering and pulling back in time.

_No! No! No no no no no!_

_What’s happening? I can feel something._

_They did it. They told his father._

_Oh, no._

_And his Satanic father is not happy._

_“Right. That was that. It was nice knowing you.”_

Aziraphale stared down into those golden, pain-filled eyes, hearing the longing that cracked through Crowley’s so-casual words. He saw his beloved’s despair, and felt that little bubble of hope pop.

This was it. Maybe he had always known it would end like this; maybe he’d been a fool to love Crowley and dream that he could ever really have him. But at least they were together, here at the end. He had that.

He smiled, the smallest, saddest smile. “‘Even to the edge of doom,’ right, Crowley?” he said softly. 

Those words hit Crowley like a knife to the heart. The ring on his left hand suddenly seemed to be burning, and all he could think was _NO._

Aziraphale loved him. He really, actually loved him, it was written all over his sad, beautiful face, and Crowley was _not_ going to let his angel die here after six thousand years of aching for him and barely five minutes in each other’s arms. _NO._

Crowley threw his arms to the sky and screamed, gripping the fabric of time and _holding_.

_Afterwards._

Crowley was still reeling from shock. It had worked. They had _lived_. The world had not ended, and there was his angel, standing in front of him for the first time in decades, looking at him with his heart in his eyes.

Looking at him almost desperately, with a quiet, aching pain. Looking at him as if Crowley was his last breath of air before a plunge, his last glimpse of the sun before a long night. Looking at him, in fact, like he was about to say goodbye.

Crowley’s eyes widened and he lunged toward the angel. “ _Aziraphale--”_

“Crowley, please--” Aziraphale flinched away. “Please, I can’t, I can’t have this argument all over again, I-- I can’t bear it--” 

“Demons tried to kill me today,” he blurted out.

Aziraphale’s jaw dropped. _“What?_ ” His thoughts derailed completely. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? I--”

“No no no no no!” he gesticulated wildly in negation. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I just mean-- they already want me dead! So how much worse could it get?” He reached toward Aziraphale pleadingly. “You heard what they said, Gabriel and Beelzebub, they know who to blame.” He held the angel’s eyes, willing Aziraphale to listen to him. “They’re going to be coming for us no matter what. Maybe we’ll figure a way out of it, maybe we won’t, but it doesn’t _matter_ how much more we piss them off now. We stopped their _Apocalypse_ . Being…” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Being together is, is _nothing_ to them compared to that.”

Aziraphale trembled in the grip of uncertainty. It had been so hard, so hard to stay away from Crowley, but he had always been _sure_ that it was the right, the only thing he could do, and that conviction had given him strength. In the face of Crowley’s arguments he didn’t feel sure of anything, and the rock he had relied on was gone. He felt so terribly fragile, as if one wrong move would shatter everything around him. “If you’re wrong…” he whispered.

Crowley’s arms dropped, and he let the last of his defenses go. “Angel, there’s nothing they could do to me that would hurt as much as watching you leave again.”

Aziraphale’s heart cracked open. He closed his eyes, and realized in a burst of clarity: _It doesn’t matter what the right choice is anymore, does it. I can’t walk away from him again. I can’t do it._

He took a long, slow breath. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

Crowley stepped closer. Slowly, slowly. As if a sudden movement might make his trembling angel bolt. He reached across the space between them and gently touched Aziraphale’s face, as he had that night so many years before. Their first touch in all this time.

Aziraphale inhaled with a shuddering gasp, and his blue eyes locked on Crowley’s. A second later the angel had thrown himself into Crowley’s arms and buried his face in his shoulder, shaking with sobs.

Crowley held him close, cheek pressed against his hair, trying to absorb the feeling of Aziraphale. It felt like the ragged edges of his broken soul had been healed all at once. He felt _whole_ again, like Aziraphale was a piece of himself that had been ripped out of his body and finally, finally restored.

“It’s okay, angel,” he murmured into Aziraphale’s hair. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“I’m-- so-- sorry!” Aziraphale sobbed.

“Shhh, no, no, it’s okay…”

“I know how much I hurt you,” he choked out. “I, I just, I _couldn’t_ \--”

“Shhh, angel, I know. I know. I understand. If it had been you,” his arms tightened at the thought, “I couldn’t have done any different.”

The angel raised his head to look at Crowley, tears still running unchecked down his face. “Thank you _so much_ for what you did. For the--the gifts, and the messages, and all of it. I--I was barely getting through the days before that. It meant so much to know that you were close, and still hoping, and-- and thinking of me as I was thinking of you. It meant everything.”

Crowley raised a hand to hold Aziraphale’s face, gently wiping away his tears. His angel’s eyes were shining, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Had to keep you out of trouble somehow, didn’t I? You said--” he swallowed, “you said I needed to stay close. To keep an eye out.”

Aziraphale smiled back, tremulously. “I did.” He rested his hand over Crowley’s, holding it against his cheek. Then he slid his fingers down to touch Crowley’s ring finger. “You found my ring,” he murmured.

“Yes.” Crowley reached with his other hand and intertwined their fingers. “You don’t have mine,” he said, a little sadly.

“Of course I do!” Aziraphale cried, sounding almost scandalized. “I didn’t dare wear it openly, but--” Aziraphale pulled back slightly and reached between them, unbuttoning his waistcoat. He flipped open the left side, revealing two small pockets just over his heart. He undid a tiny button and, reaching in, pulled out the silver ring.

Crowley’s throat closed with emotion. “Can I...” he whispered huskily.

Aziraphale nodded, unable to speak.

Crowley took the ring in one hand and Aziraphale’s left hand in the other. Carefully, reverently, he slid it onto Aziraphale’s finger, eyes fixed on the ring as it settled into place.

Aziraphale’s eyes welled up again. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, I love you so much, I’ve loved you for so long, I thought I was going to die without you, oh, _Crowley--_ ”

Crowley kissed him. Tears were running down both of their faces now, and they clung to each other, kissing as if they would never stop.

A branch snapped. Suddenly Crowley found himself behind Aziraphale, surrounded by a tight cocoon of white wings, his wrist held in a deathgrip. For a moment there was no sound but Aziraphale’s harsh breathing as he frantically searched for danger. Then Crowley wrapped his arms around the angel’s waist from behind.

“It’s all right, love,” he whispered. “It’s all right.”

Slowly, Aziraphale retracted his wings and relaxed slightly in Crowley’s hold. Crowley took in his white face and terrified eyes.

“Let’s go home, angel.”

They spent that night wrapped in each other’s arms on the couch in the back room of the bookshop. They spoke quietly, as if they feared that any loud sound might break the spell or wake them from a dream. 

A question popped into Crowley’s mind. “What’s in that other pocket, angel?”

“Hmm?” Aziraphale responded absently, focused on running his lips over Crowley’s neck and inhaling the scent of his hair.

Crowley chuckled. “The other pocket on the inside of your waistcoat. What’s in it?”

“Oh, um--” Aziraphale disentangled one arm to retrieve his waistcoat from where it had been discarded on the arm of the sofa. “Look for yourself.”

Crowley opened the second, larger pocket and pulled out a yellowed photograph. It tingled slightly in his fingers-- Aziraphale had done something quite powerful to keep it from getting damaged or degrading. It appeared to be some sort of artist’s shot of Kensington Gardens around the turn of the century, full of people enjoying the flowers and sunshine. “What’s so special about this?” he asked quizzically.

“Look.” Aziraphale pointed at a slightly blurry pair in the background. “It’s us.” Crowley’s arms had apparently been in motion when the photo was taken and were almost entirely blurred out; Aziraphale was in the middle of speaking and his face was contorted weirdly. They were pretty clearly having an argument.

Crowley laughed. “This is _awful_ , angel, why did you keep this?”

Aziraphale smiled a little. “It was the only picture I could find of us together. I didn’t want anything to happen to it.” There was a catch in his voice.

Crowley cupped Aziraphale’s face in his hands and kissed him. “I love you,” he murmured against the angel’s lips.

“I love you too,” he whispered back.

“We’ll have to take a better picture sometime,” he said between kisses.

“Mmm, maybe, I’m rather attached to this one now. Especially the way your hair is sticking up on one side.”

As the night went on they talked about everything that had happened in their years apart. There was a lot to catch up on. (“ _S_ _nakes,_ Crowley, _really_ , _snakes_ in my house?!” “But you like snakes!” “I like _one_ snake. Just one!”) Near morning, they quieted, just holding each other and soaking in the feeling, kissing long and slow.

Aziraphale sighed. “It seems as if I couldn’t get close enough to you,” he murmured, nuzzling against him. “I wish I could--” He stopped with a sharp gasp, eyes widening as he remembered Agnes’s prophecy.

“What? What is it?” Crowley said urgently.

Aziraphale looked at him, and a wild grin spread across his face. “I have an idea,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever think you're done with a story and you just need to fuss with the ending till you're happy with it, and then find yourself writing another page and a half (mainly of crying)? Related news, this story will have four chapters instead of three now. Apparently there were more feelings that needed to be felt, in my story of mostly feelings.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley wasn’t sure what was happening to his body, but he desperately wanted it to continue happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I tried to write a sex scene, and what came out was mainly feelings. Sorry for the wait-- I had some trouble making this fit with the rest of the story and then wrapping things up in a way I was happy with. Thank you to everyone who's commented, and I hope you enjoy!

_The Next Day_

Aziraphale sat on the bench next to Crowley, buzzing with giddy joy. The last of his fears had run out of him like water when he saw the demon walking toward him in his body, safe and unharmed. Now, he wasn’t sure what was holding him to the earth; he felt as if he should be floating into the atmosphere, with relief and happiness and love ballooning him upwards.

_Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?_

Aziraphale’s grin shifted, mischief on his face now. “Actually, I would like to go home,” he said, just a little too prim to be believable. “Give me a lift?” He looked over at Crowley with something like a challenge in his laughing eyes.

Crowley had no idea what the angel was planning, but he knew that look. “‘Course, angel,” he grinned back. What did he care where they went? He took Aziraphale’s hand as they walked out of the park, and felt like an entirely new person had taken his place under his skin.

Aziraphale never took his eyes off him during the ride to the bookshop, and to his embarrassment Crowley felt himself _blushing_ ; but the angel had never looked at him like that before, _staring_ , eyes tracing every line of his face and his body so intently that they felt like fingertips, touching.

“Come in for a drink?” he said quietly as they stopped, and those words, the same words from decades before, shot through Crowley like a bolt of adrenaline. But Aziraphale was quite cool and collected as he marched up to the shop, placed his key firmly in the lock, opened the door and ushered Crowley in.

So Crowley was more than a little bit surprised when, the second after he heard the latch click, he felt a hand on his wrist, and then found himself spun around and shoved up against the door, pinned by the angel’s body pressing against every inch of him from the lips on down. 

Aziraphale kissed him desperately and his hands seemed to be everywhere: in his hair, clutching his hip, gripping his back, anything to pull him closer.

“We _lived,_ ” the angel gasped against his mouth. “We actually _lived!”_

Crowley stood there for a moment, frozen in shock. Then his arms wrapped automatically around his angel and he returned the frantic caresses with interest. Aziraphale was right. It was impossible, the whole thing was impossible, but it had happened and here they were, impossibly together and safe at last.

_No one is going to take him from me ever again,_ he thought fiercely, holding Aziraphale tight. _Not ever again._

Their open mouths slid against each other and Crowley revelled in the intoxication of knowing what his angel _tasted_ like. He had ached for Aziraphale’s touch for so long he hardly knew who he was without that feeling, and now millennia of helpless longing poured through him as pure, undiluted _desire._ Their bodies were touching everywhere, touching and moving and holding, and all he could think was _more, more, more._

It hadn’t crossed his mind to wonder where this was heading until Aziraphale’s hips moved against him in a certain way and pleasure shot through his body, making him moan.

Aziraphale pulled away just slightly, uncertainty in his face. “I--I’ve never done this before--”

“Neither have I.” Crowley tugged Aziraphale back to him. “You’re quite clever, we’ll figure it out.”

Aziraphale laughed breathlessly and kissed him again, and this time the fingers at Crowley’s waist crept under his shirt and ran up his chest, ghosting over his skin.

“ _Angel,_ ” Crowley gasped, shivering at the sensation. 

Aziraphale looked up, blue eyes wide. “Oh,” he whispered, and it was suddenly _unbearable_ to Crowley that they were both wearing so many clothes. He started scrabbling at Aziraphale’s buttons and the angel was tugging him forward, pulling him into the shop and up the stairs and into a tiny bedroom that Crowley had never seen before.

They fell onto the bed together just as Crowley _finally_ got the angel’s waistcoat off. Aziraphale had had better luck with his clothing and was just pulling his undershirt over his head.

Aziraphale paused for a second and just looked at him. The angel was hovering above him, hands braced on either side of him, his shirt rumpled and his bowtie half-undone, and after a long lifetime of witnessing every kind of temptation, it was the most arousing thing Crowley had ever seen. Aziraphale’s eyes traveled across his bare chest almost reverently, then finally ran back up to his face.

“I love you, Crowley,” he said, and pain flickered across his face. “For decades I thought I’d never get to tell you. Six thousand years of opportunities, and I’d wasted all of them. I almost lost you for good, and I--”

Crowley cut him off with a kiss. “I knew, angel,” he said, eyes closed, forehead pressed to Aziraphale’s. “It’s okay. I knew. And you’re never going to lose me.”

Aziraphale’s lips curved into a shaky smile. “You’ve rather proved that, haven’t you?” he said, a bit thickly.

“Uh-uh. No more crying.” Crowley pulled Aziraphale down against him and started untucking his shirt, caressing the small of his back with gentle fingers. “‘S’all over now. We’re here. We’re together. That’s all that matters.” 

He rolled Aziraphale over onto his back and started kissing slowly down his neck as he carefully undid button after button. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, you know,” he said quietly into the angel’s shoulder, half-hoping Aziraphale wouldn’t hear. “From the beginning. To be here, with you.”

“ _Oh,”_ Aziraphale’s arms tightened around his back. “I think I’ve loved you since the day we met. You’re so--” he whimpered as Crowley’s lips grazed the sensitive skin at the corner of his jaw. “--so beautiful, and brilliant, and you wouldn’t let me-- pretend. To think what I was supposed to think. And even then, on the wall before any of it had happened, it felt like-- like you were supposed to be there with me. Like the other half of me.”

Crowley pressed his face into Aziraphale’s shoulder, struggling to control his emotions. He wanted those words so badly, but part of him was still sure they couldn’t be true; he couldn’t possibly be the _other half_ of this perfect, radiant angel. But in some soft, vulnerable place at the center of his chest they _felt_ true-- they always had, and it terrified him to admit it. No matter what he had tried to tell himself over the years, being apart from Aziraphale had always hurt because it had always felt like they were _supposed_ to be together. Like magnets, tugging at each other across distance and time.

Aziraphale stroked his hair, so gently. “I’m so sorry, darling,” he whispered. “I was so afraid, for so long. I didn’t want to see it, but I always, always needed you. Every day of my life.” His fingers ran across Crowley’s cheek, wiping tears away. “You saved me,” he said quietly. “So many times, in so many different ways, but especially these past decades.” He held Crowley closer. “It-- was killing me, I think. Believing I’d never see you again. And then you found a way to come back to me with so much love it filled up my whole life, every empty, useless minute, and you saved me.” He pulled away slightly to look Crowley in the eyes, head next to his on the pillow. “You deserve better than someone who pretends not to love you. And you’re going to have it from now on.” He lifted Crowley’s hand to his lips and kissed it fiercely. “I’ll be grateful for the rest of eternity that you wouldn’t let me run, even when I was doing it to protect you.”

Crowley shook his head a little helplessly. “I’m not-- you-- you don’t need to--”

Aziraphale kissed him, tongue sliding deep into his mouth. “I do,” he murmured. “May I touch you, my beautiful, precious love?”

“Ngk--yeah,” Crowley choked out. When he had imagined sex with Aziraphale, a thought that had come to mind more than once over the millenia, he had _not_ pictured himself _crying_ over his _feelings_ like some pathetic idiot. He leaned into the kiss and sank into the sensation of Aziraphale’s fingers tracing across his back and chest and stomach, letting the heat of a few moments earlier return. His hands, still shaky, reached out to push Aziraphale’s shirt off his shoulders and pull his undershirt over his head, and there was so much soft, soft skin for him to touch. Aziraphale moaned into his mouth as Crowley’s fingers circled his hip, the other hand caressing the curve of his stomach and across his chest. Aziraphale’s leg went up to hook around his waist and pull them flush against each other, and this time it was Crowley who moaned. “ _Angel.”_

Aziraphale looked up at him like he was a revelation, and slowly, experimentally, pressed his hips to Crowley’s, rotating against him just slightly. Crowley’s back arched and a sound he didn’t know he could make came out of his mouth. “Oh, _yes,_ ” whispered the angel, and kept going. 

Crowley wasn’t sure what was happening to his body, but he desperately wanted it to continue happening. He and his angel were gripping each other with hands and legs and moving against each other in a way that made pleasure light every inch of him on fire. He thought a little madly that the sounds Aziraphale was making might be enough to get him off even if they hadn’t been touching at all. His angel looked utterly lost in the pleasure, lost in _him_ , and that was more intoxicating than any of it.

“A-angel, _please_ , can I-- _please,_ ” he gasped out, unable to string enough words together to ask, but the response came:

“ _Yes, yes, yes,”_ lips wet against his skin, and Crowley made a vague gesture and the rest of their clothing was gone. The softness and heat of his angel pressed against him everywhere, and _this, this_ was everything, the rest of the universe vanishing until there was nothing but him and Aziraphale, dissolving into each other, into heat and light and love and pleasure that erupted through his body like a wave. 

“ _Angel!_ ” he cried out into Aziraphale’s mouth, and the angel was arching and shuddering beneath him, fingers digging into his hips, his own cries muffled by Crowley’s lips.

They went limp against each other. “Oh, wow,” said Aziraphale breathlessly. “I admit-- when I invited you back-- I didn’t realize it would be like _that.”_

Crowley smiled and hummed into the angel’s neck. He quite liked Aziraphale’s neck. The scent. The taste. He was going to spend a lot more time with his face right here. He opened his mouth to express that sentiment. “Never letting you go,” he mumbled, nuzzling in closer. “Never, never, never.”

Aziraphale’s fingers caressed across his shoulder blades. “Well, good,” he said, pressing a kiss into Crowley’s hair. “You _have_ been wearing my ring all these years, so I’d hoped we were on the same page about that.”

A hot flame of happiness lit up Crowley’s chest, even in the midst of the peaceful sea of post-orgasmic contentment. Suddenly he wanted to hear it, and, naked in his lover’s arms, skin still alive with pleasure, he had just enough courage to force the words out. “On the same page about… what…exactly?” he said indistinctly, eyes carefully shut.

Then Aziraphale’s hands were framing his face, and he was asking, “Look at me, darling,” and those warm, happy blue eyes filled his vision. “About _forever_ , Crowley.” He found Crowley’s left hand and pressed a kiss to the finger that wore his ring, that had worn it for so many years alone. “About loving you and staying by your side until the end of time, if you’ll have me.”

Crowley laughed wetly. “I think you could convince me,” he croaked through his tears. Aziraphale was impossibly gentle as he wiped the tears away and suddenly it was all too much. The night before, it had been easy to forget himself in the need to comfort Aziraphale and keep a grip on his own white-hot terror that this would all be snatched away from them again. Now there was nothing-- no fear, no danger, no need to lock up his pain so he could take care of his angel, as he had for so many years. The only thing in the world was the love in Aziraphale’s eyes, oceans of it, so much more than Crowley had ever imagined could be his. Something in his chest was cracking open in the face of that love, and he felt like his whole self was going to pour out, lost in a flood of emotion he could no longer control.

He stared into those perfect blue eyes, heart throbbing with everything he had kept in. “I missed you, angel,” he said, voice breaking. It was so pathetically inadequate. “I missed you _so much._ ”

Aziraphale pulled him close and Crowley fell apart, sobs tearing their way out of his chest, his body shaking. “We’re always going to have this,” the angel whispered. “Nothing is ever going to come between us again, and I will always be here. Right here.” He rocked Crowley gently. “I’m right here.”

Crowley just lay there in his arms, shuddering with sobs, finally letting himself feel all the pain and bitter loneliness of the past almost-century. His hands clutched Aziraphale’s shoulders and he hung onto the only thing that felt real.

Slowly, the tears ran out and his breathing calmed. The angel kept murmuring soft nonsense in his ear, and between the sound of gentle words and his angel’s soft body holding him, he felt like all his raw emotions and jagged edges were being slowly wrapped in gauze, cushioned and protected.

He nuzzled his face into the soft skin of Aziraphale’s chest. He felt vulnerable and a little embarrassed, but lighter now, almost like he was floating. 

“There you are. My brave boy. So brave and strong and lovely,” Aziraphale murmured.

“‘M all right,” Crowley said, taking a breath and scrubbing his face. “Sorry, I--”

Aziraphale kissed him. “None of that, now,” he scolded lightly. “I cried all over you yesterday. It was your turn.”

Crowley’s lips twitched. “Is that how it works?”

The angel smiled into his eyes. “I’m told fairness is very important in relationships. I’m an angel, you know. It’s the sort of thing I know about.”

Crowley grinned. “Mmm, yeah. Real expert. I’d better listen to you, huh?”

“Naturally.”

He laughed outright, then hoisted himself out of bed. “C’mon, angel,” he reached a hand down toward Aziraphale.

The angel raised an eyebrow as he took Crowley’s hand. “Where are we going, love?” he asked quizzically.

“Dinner, of course.” Crowley pulled him up out of bed. “I thought you knew all about relationships. We got the order a bit off, but,” he rested his hands on Aziraphale’s waist, “I’m pretty sure it’s time I took you on a _date_.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Kiss, marriage proposal, sex, _then_ a dinner date… yes, we certainly have done things in a _very_ unique order.”

Crowley leaned in so his lips just brushed the angel’s. “We could try it all again,” he whispered seductively. “See if we can get it right the second time around.”

“Learn from experience.”

“Bound to be educational.”

“Mmm…” Crowley ran his tongue along Aziraphale’s bottom lip, and the angel looked up at him through his eyelashes. “Are you trying to tempt me, demon?”

Crowley smirked. “Thought I should practice, since it didn’t work last time.”

“Oh, it certainly did,” Aziraphale breathed. “Not the way you intended, but there was definitely… _temptation_ … occurring.”

“Mmm, good.” He leaned forward and traced the shell of the angel’s ear with the tip of his tongue. “Wouldn’t want to lose my touch.” Aziraphale’s arms tightened around his neck.

Then Crowley stepped away, grinning. “We’ll never get out of here if we keep going like that.”

“That would be awful, indeed,” Aziraphale said dryly.

“Not learning from our mistakes at all.” Crowley waved his arm broadly and they were both fully clothed with not a hair out of place.

He looked down at his angel, grinning like an idiot. “Dinner?” he asked, offering his arm grandly.

Aziraphale smiled back at him and Crowley felt warmth wash over him from head to foot. “Dinner.” The angel agreed firmly, and took his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I had a lot of fun writing this and I'm so excited to share it!
> 
> If anyone's interested, I listened to quite a bit of music that makes me think of Crowley and Aziraphale while I was writing.
> 
> "Photograph" by Ed Sheeran inspired some of the details for the story (although the original idea of Crowley finding ways to show his love when it isn't safe for them to see each other predates me connecting it with the song). Most notably the title and (obviously) the photograph Aziraphale has been carrying.   
> Lyrics I especially liked: "We keep this love in a photograph/We made these memories for ourselves/ Where our eyes are never closing/ Our hearts are never broken" and "You can keep me inside the necklace you got when you were sixteen/Next to your heartbeat where I should be/ Keep it deep within your soul".
> 
> Other songs I listened to while writing:  
> "Let Love In" by The Goo Goo Dolls:  
> "You're the only one I ever believed in/ The answer that could never be found/ The moment you decided to let love in. / Now I'm banging on the door of an angel/ Beyond your fear is where we begin"
> 
> "Someone to You" by Banners:  
> "I'll make the moon shine just for your view/ I'll make the starlight circle the room./ And if you feel like night is falling/ I want to be the one you're calling/ 'Cause I believe that you could lead the way."
> 
> "Hey Ya" by The Goo Goo Dolls:  
> "I would drown to save you from the sinking thoughts you feel/ And I'll love you just the same, so don't you ever feel ashamed/ 'Cause we all get tired of fighting just to feel like we belong/ And I know you feel forgotten but I've been here all along" (An Aziraphale one! In my mind at least)
> 
> "At the End of the Day" by Army of Freshmen:  
> "And this shoebox of memories means more to me than any argument could ever be./ At the end of the day, am I what you've waited for?/ How can I say that I need you more and more and more./ Years go by, and it's just the same old war/ What we have is still worth fighting for/ What are we fighting for?"
> 
> "It's All Been Done" by the Barenaked Ladies:  
> "I met you before the fall of Rome/ And I begged you to let me take you home./ You were wrong/ I was right/ You said goodbye/ I said goodnight"
> 
> "A Thousand Years" by Sting:  
> (I hadn't heard this song since I was a kid and happened to listen to it, and it is the most Crowley thing I have ever heard. I'll include some favorite lyrics but the whole song is really just his life story. I think he wrote it.)  
> "I may be numberless, I may be innocent/ I may know many things, I may be ignorant/ Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands/ Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands/ I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times/ Reborn as fortune's child, to judge another's crimes./ I'll wear this pilgrim's cloak. I'll be a common thief./ I've kept this single faith, I have but one belief./ I still love you. I still want you./ A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves like galaxies in my head./ On and on the mysteries unwind themselves, eternities still unsaid./ 'Til you love me."


End file.
